Saturday, February 14, 2015

We were the Hosts for the Valentine's Dance tonight and tried to make sure everyone had a good time. We had a good time ourselves although we did a lot of running around.

Jealous Heart was our band for the evening.

And, there was dancing!

Nora offered us a sample of the Jello

Shots at their table. Yum, it was good!

Char baked cakes and cupcakes that we sold in the Chuck Wagon tonight. We sold out on them early in the evening. Here she is standing with two couples who attended the dance who had been married the longest of anyone attending. One couple had been married 64 years and the other has been married for 63 years.

While Lee was handing out prizes for the evening I started the Kiss Cam for the evening. I think I took pictures of 90 couples tonight. I just have a few of our friends shown here:

Donna and Richard

Our neighbors, Faye and Gary

Jerry and Carolyn

Tom and Sue

Steve and Judy

JoAnn and Pat

Donna and Rich

Kathy and Bob

Our neighbors, Linda and Bob

Char and Jack

That's Us

Even Ram, from Jealous Heart, got into the act

We shared this cake that we bought at the Chuck Wagon. It was delicious. We also shared a bottle of Moscoto.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Today we took a Winter Ranch bus trip to Texas Gold Shrimp. This tour has been pretty popular so we decided we had better check it out. Texas Gold Shrimp is one the Largest
Shrimp Operations in the Gulf. The tour included a tour of a Shrimp
Boat at their docking facility. We also enjoyed eating the Wild
Caught Gulf Shrimp cooked right in front of us at the end of the
tour.

We had a bus of 23 people from Winter

Ranch Going To Texas Gold Shrimp

Arriving at Texas Gold Shrimp

We sat down to listen to information

about Texas Gold Shrimp

A member of the family who owns the
business gave us an introduction to the shrimping business when we first
arrived. This young man is the son of the current President of the
company. He says he has worked every job in the place and now gives
these tours as well as manages part of the operations of the business.
He is a busy guy!

Darlene Onken was chosen to take part in a shrimp deveining contest. She and another guy from the audience got their hands up first. He had some experience at deveining and he won. She gave him a run of the money though. He won 1 1/2 pounds of wild caught brown shrimp. She did get a deveining tool though.

Deveining Tool

Instructions on Using the Deveining Tool

Instructions were given on how to devein
a shrimp correctly and the two contestants each had five shrimp to
devein. The first one done was the winner.

Josie is in the middle listening to the discussion.

This net is a small version of what is dragged behind

the back of the shrimp boat to catch the shrimp.

The other half of the net

Our guide, pictured above, showed us how
the sea turtles and smaller fish escape from the net instead of dying
with the shrimp they catch. Their fate is not much better, however,
since dolphins take turns eating the small fish that escape the nets.

After we learned how the nets work we took a

tour of the shrimp boat itself.

This is the brine tank which is used for the fast

freezing process of the shrimp

Lee, Gary and Ethel listening to the Guide

View from the Shrimp Boat

Our Guide on the Shrimp Boat - He has worked

for the company for over 40 years

This guy is a "header"

As a header, he is actually removing the head from the shrimp at an absolutely incredible pace. It normally
takes him about 5 minutes to decapitate the shrimp and fill the orange
basket beside him with shrimp bodies. These "headers" sit on the floor
on these little benches for four hours at a time heading the shrimp. I
don't know about you, but I wouldn't be able to get up much less move
around after that. They actually tried giving these guys padded seats
with backs but after a couple of trips, the headers wanted their old
small benches back because the cushier ones caused them to slow down.

Deheading the Shrimp

This is the dining room of the shrimp boat.

This is the crew's bunks. There are
four in here. The captain gets a room by himself but it is mighty tiny
and has equipment in it. These are not what you would call plush
accommodations!

This is the Pilot House - the most spacious of all the rooms.

After the tour of the shrimp boat, we went back into the first building where they had drawings for various prizes.

Texas Gold Shrimp has a Gift Shop and
all the proceeds from the sales of these items goes to the Gladys Porter
Zoo for the turtle rescue efforts. Last year they donated over $1,000
to that program.

After the door prizes were handed out,
we were served some fresh brown shrimp and cocktail sauce. They asked
that we try some of the shrimp without the sauce so that we could tell
what fresh shrimp tastes like. It certainly has a much stronger flavor
than what we've purchased at the grocery store. It was really good.
After this trip and all the information we have now on wild caught vs
imported farm raised shrimp, we will be a lot picker about what we buy
from now on. Our tour guide told us that the shrimp we buy at Walmart,
Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Joe's Crab Shack and many grocery stores are
foreign farm raised shrimp. Here in Texas we can get wild caught shrimp
at Louie's Back Yard, Schlitterbahn's, Dirty Al's, Pelican Station, HEB
and a couple of places in McAllen. What
we found interesting is that one of our local grocery store chains in
Iowa, HyVee, sells wild caught shrimp. Good for HyVee!!

We each received a portion about this size to try.

It was really good!

View From Our Table

After all of us were on the bus again,
Jim headed us over to Pelican Station in Port Isabel for dinner. They
were wild caught shrimp and it was delicious!

Our Table Full of People from Winter Ranch

Then it was time to head home! I think I
can speak for all of us that this was a great trip. We learned a lot
and it was a beautiful day to boot!

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About Us

We are Lee and Mary Benfield, Gypsies@Heart! We are full-time RV'ers and have been on the road since October, 2006. We are originally from Cedar Rapids, Iowa and now call Box Elder, SD our home although we no longer own a sticks and bricks home. We travel the country experiencing the beauty of nature and photographing our experiences as we wander. Our blog is a pictorial view of this beautiful land that we call the USA!